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General => Terragen Discussion => Topic started by: kentm on August 05, 2019, 05:33:37 PM

Title: placing planets in the shy, translating, positioning
Post by: kentm on August 05, 2019, 05:33:37 PM
Hi all,

Is there a way in Terragen to rotate an object around the camera position? Or maybe instead to parent an object under another object and have its rotation/position be affected by the parent object?

I'm placing 'celestial bodies' into some of my skies and am finding it troublesome to position them, so I'm wondering if they can be rotated or transformed relative to the camera position so instead of pushing them around the sky using the numerics I could simply rotate them around in relation to the camera or slide them 'in/out' in the relative z translation.

Is this possible? Thanks again!
Title: Re: placing planets in the shy, translating, positioning
Post by: Oshyan on August 05, 2019, 05:39:14 PM
Object parenting is not yet possible, but is planned for a future update. However you can move planets just like any other object so I'd suggest simply getting them into view of your camera then manually moving them in the 3D Preview. You can easily select them from a list with a right-click in the 3D preview, then drag it around in your view and put it wherever you want. Not sure if that works for your particular needs, but it's generally the easiest way in my experience. You will want to enable "Move textures with planet" before moving any planets though.

- Oshyan
Title: Re: placing planets in the shy, translating, positioning
Post by: kentm on August 05, 2019, 06:02:14 PM
Hi Oshyan, thanks again for your prompt reply.

Yes, this is what I'm doing to move the planets about, repositioning them numerically and via the 3d viewport.

The reason I'm asking for alternatives is that I'm making 360 panoramas and I'm finding this method a bit troublesome as in order to re-position the objects I need to keep jumping back and forth from the camera/render view to the 3d preview, repositioning the 3d preview cam each time of course, and then I'm finding that the manipulator handles of the planet objects are not clickable/selectable above certain zoom amounts (maybe the handle selection area scales with the viewport window zoom amount?) so I'm either zooming in/out or relying on numeric input entirely. ...and the numeric input repositioning the planets becomes a three step input process for each repo and then because I'm doing 360 panos checking the position in the render view becomes and constant changing between  render camera and back to the 3d preview, etc etc.

But you get what I mean. Thanks again for your reply!
Title: Re: placing planets in the shy, translating, positioning
Post by: Oshyan on August 05, 2019, 06:09:28 PM
Ah, yes that sounds like a hassle. If you have current Maintenance you can download the 4.4.18 Frontier version which allows manipulator handles and selection in the RTP. The RTP handles spherical cameras correctly. So that may help? Although planets are displaceable objects and so they may be problematic when moved since RTP does not generate its own geometry yet. But worth a try I think.

- Oshyan
Title: Re: placing planets in the shy, translating, positioning
Post by: kentm on August 05, 2019, 08:09:34 PM
Awesome, thanks! I'll check if we have the Maintenance up to date - I think we do.

I've been using imported OBJs for the planet shapes as I'm new to this and wanted to keep it simple.
Title: Re: placing planets in the shy, translating, positioning
Post by: Oshyan on August 06, 2019, 02:35:58 PM
Imported objects will preview well in RTP, so that's even better. Although you can't do atmospheres on imported objects at the moment.

- Oshyan